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Why The Media Assault On Ashley Judd Is Larger Than A Puffy Face -- And May Spark A Revolution

Ashley Judd is getting a lot of attention for the right reason. It’s her essay in The Daily Beast that slams the media for the speculation, assault and accusations about her “puffy face.” Her essay is filled with bold integrity.

It all started a few weeks ago when Ashley Judd, 43, was on tour promoting her new TV show, Missing. Her face looked “puffy.” The media went right for the needles and knives, speculating that she had work done. Sad, but not a surprise – she is a woman with a puffy face, what other explanation? Judd’s rep set the record straight: Judd’s face was puffy because she was battling a serious sinus infection and the medication was making her face puffy.

But the media bodysnarking didn’t end there. And neither did Judd. She did what all women should do–she spoke out–not just for herself, but for all girls and women:

The assault on our body image, the hypersexualization of girls and women and subsequent degradation of our sexuality as we walk through the decades, and the general incessant objectification is what this conversation allegedly about my face is really about.

I reached out to Julie Zeilinger, undergraduate student at Barnard College, Columbia University, and Founder and Editor of the FBomb.org, a feminist blog/community for teens and young adults who care about their rights and want to be heard. She’s also the author of the new book: A Little F’d Up: Why Feminism Is Not A Dirty Word. I asked her for her take. In a brief break between classes Julie wrote:

“Yesterday afternoon, I, like millions of other college students across the country, logged on to Facebook as a pathetic attempt at procrastination. I expected to flip through some of my friends’ newly posted pictures, maybe like somebody’s status– the usual – but instead was faced with something extraordinary. My newsfeed was inundated with links to an article written by Ashley Judd—the kind of article that, as a young feminist, I have been waiting to read for a very long time.

In response to a swell of criticism regarding her “puffy” appearance, or what feminist blog Jezebel has cleverly titled “Judd-puff-maggedon 2012,” Judd recently penned an article for The Daily Beast, calling out the media for what she saw as “pointedly nasty, gendered, and misogynistic” commentary about her appearance, stating “The assault on our body image, the hypersexualization of girls and women and subsequent degradation of our sexuality…and the general incessant objectification is what this conversation allegedly about my face is really about.” And while this well-composed, insightful article has clearly resonated with all who are sick of seeing women skewered in the media for their appearance, who are frustrated with our society’s unattainable standards of beauty, I think it is especially meaningful for young women my age.

I am willing to bet that my generation feels more pressure to have the “perfect body” than any generation before us. We are not only inundated with images of anorexic, photoshopped models, but moreover these messages have been ingrained within us: the way we view our bodies is intrinsically tied to our feelings of self worth. We feel that to be fat is to have failed, and in a society that pushes women to compete against each other, this is unacceptable. And yet, most of us don’t see this as a feminist issue. While we are incredibly unhappy with constantly feeling like we just don’t measure up, we have largely accepted it as the status quo. Which is why Ashley Judd’s article is so important.

It is vital that a celebrity wrote this article. As the center of society’s objectification of women, famous women are the emblem and most extreme and overt cases of how our culture systematically dismembers women, encouraging the world to value them only as much as their worst flaw. Young girls read tabloid magazines and gossip blogs that treat those famous women so horrendously, and because those very women seem to accept that treatment, seem to absorb it and continue to live up to unachievable standards (though their personal experience is, as demonstrated by Judd, quite the opposite) young girls internalize the idea that they must, too. For a woman at the very heart of this issue to finally speak out, to finally demand that what the media is doing to her – and therefore, all women – is beyond being not okay, but sexist discrimination and ultimately intolerable, is hugely important for young women to witness. We have a role model – a woman who is beautiful by normative standards, yet rejects such treatment and denigrating appraisal based on her looks.

And if simply taking a stand against such treatment as a prominent figure weren’t enough, Judd goes a step forward, explaining why such treatment is unacceptable, even daring to use words like “misogyny” and “feminism.” She gives young women readers the vocabulary to express what, internally, they’ve felt all along: this issue is not just about personal insecurities and struggles. It is much bigger than any one of us alone. We are not alone. She gives my generation tools with which we can evaluate this issue and to fight back.

This may have been a conversation feminists have been having for some time now, but because Ashley Judd spoke, the world is finally listening. Specifically, young girls who thought they were alone in their beliefs that the way women are eviscerated by the media, and in turn the impact of that treatment on us, is wrong are waking up. It may be going a little far to say that Ashley Judd’s response to her “puffy face” has sparked a revolution, but I think it’s safe to say she has given us an incredible gift. I only hope that more celebrities follow in her footsteps. I only hope that more young women follow in theirs.”

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I’m guessing that Judd’s work as a spokesmodel for Estée Lauder, (a company that makes products that allow women to change the way they look) has escaped you. Apparently it’s just fine for Ashley Judd to profit from media that reinforces the negative self-image of women, but she has a problem with others doing the same.

There is a difference between choosing the way you want to look and having to meet someone’s expectation of how you must look – in order to be accepted or acceptable or live without criticism by members of the media or men and even friends and other women.

Are you saying that Estée Lauder products that allow women to change the way they look is wrong because women shouldn’t be able to choose how they look? That is the whole point of the article.

Women have no problem being beautiful or changing or being themselves and not changing. Women are not the problem – it’s the sexualization of women that causes a problem – when women are considered objects, and worthless until they meet a standard of beauty – set by others – in order to be allowed to have happiness of friendship, a job, a date, a husband, public office. That’s the problem.

It is just fine for Ashley Judd to speak about beauty to women – to sell beauty products that she uses why should she not – Ashley Judd is beautiful. I’m ok with that. We don’t have to be anything other than who we are to be self determining people. Go read Ashley Judd’s article – it’s a good read!

If George Clooney were battling a sinus infection with a puffy face, the result would be a marginal aside set in commas. Gloria Steinem, set to discuss this topic Sunday on the OWN channel, will do well to anoint Ashley her successor. David, nothing cosmetic can reverse swelling from medication. Ashley is known for worthy endeavors. Making the most of how you look is helpful for women whose bone structure isn’t as good as hers, and I’m guessing your standards for attractive women fall along the lines of equanimity with however you look. Redford featured her on Sundance with Madeleine Albright in his Icons program when they toured the construction of the World Trade Center rebuilding.

How has Ms. Haley been ‘maliciously smeared’ exactly? If anything she has smeared and entire gender. ‘There is no war on women’? What world does she live in? ‘Women don’t care about contraception’? REALLY?

One of two things needs to happen: 1. Women need to comprise more than the current 3% of senior executives of media organizations or, 2. Men and Women who find the demeaning images, reports and adjectives contained in the “news” and advertising objectionable, vote with their money. Until these happen, nothing will change. Hilary Clinton, Condoleza Rice, Nancy Pelosi, Sarah Palin, etc. endure the insulting focus on how they look rather than what they say.

“That women are joining in the ongoing disassembling of my appearance is salient. Patriarchy is not men. Patriarchy is a system in which both women and men participate. It privileges, inter alia, the interests of boys and men over the bodily integrity, autonomy, and dignity of girls and women. It is subtle, insidious, and never more dangerous than when women passionately deny that they themselves are engaging in it.”

Oh yeah… I think I understand: much like the misandry and demonization, criminalization of men and nowadays: little boys too. They call it Feminism. See some of the ‘criminals’ defined under feminist influenced laws here: http://www.solresearch.org/~SOLR/rprt/bkgrd/JSOcases.asp

and here: http://www.solresearch.org/~SOLR/rprt/JSOs.htm#Sct_1_gallery

“Patriarchy is not men”? There’s a convenient “excuse my hatred” if I ever saw one.

If the attitude you’re condemning is “not men”, then do your sisterhood and all of the rest of us a favor and apply a moniker that doesn’t implicate fatherhood. Though the State is aggressively posturing as a surrogate father figure for feminist women, “fatherhood” is still an exclusively male occupation.

David Zemba – clearly you’re missing the whole idea. It’s like saying a model shouldn’t profit the job of a model (and also be physically fit) if they also believe people should not be objectified, as they are now, and have been for a long time. You’re pathetic – and I hope not a father.

I’m sorry you are unable to see the sheer hypocrisy in Ms. Judd’s position. Allow me to try and explain it to you.

The cosmetic industry is built on selling the idea that if women buy cosmetics, they will improve their appearances and be considered more attractive. The implicit message is that a woman’s natural appearance can be improved by applying cosmetics, or to say it another way, women in their natural state are not beautiful.

As the “face” of Estée Lauder, Judd is reinforcing this subtle communication every time she appears in an advertisement. The fact that she is attempting to cry foul on a message she HERSELF is sending out into the world is either supremely arrogant. incredibly myopic, or both.

Geniene, If he is a father, he probably cannot exercise the right to be one on account of being married to, then divorced from a selfish, man-hating feminist such as yourself and all the other feminists here, discussing this irrelevant drivel as well as your misandry. Victims… None of you would even know the meaning of the word. Then you call this man ‘pathetic’. You women have it so easy in life, if this issue is so important to you all that you have to have a big ‘conference’ about it. If my mother ever cast an insult like the one you just offered to David Zemba, for merely trying to express himself, she wouldn’t be my mother anymore.

You do realize that people insult each other all the time in everyday life right? You must also realize that a female can insult a male without being ‘selfish’, or ‘man-hating’, or a ‘feminist’? Much like men can insult women without being angry, mommy-issued, misogynist? Perhaps you can not see these things if you are so ridiculous as to say ‘women have it so easy in life’. Showing not just your complete lack of awareness, but also your issues quite starkly. I agree that Geniene was unfairly rude to David Zemba. Your reply however, went way overboard.

Fresh from using bogus statistics to accuse all men of “sex trafficking”, she’s gone on the warpath over “objectification” of women by men, when it is women who run the fashion industry and media that assaults women’s body image, hypersexualizes girls and women, and subsequent degrades their sexuality.

The tail-chasing hypocrisy of white feminists has really gotten tiresome. It’s not even funny anymore.

Ashley writes : “We are described and detailed, our faces and bodies analyzed and picked apart, our worth ascertained and ascribed based on the reduction of personhood to simple physical objectification.”